Upcoming investor briefing during the GIIN forum seeks to secure additional support

(WASHINGTON, D.C.—October 15, 2018) After being launched earlier this year, The Principles for Investment in Sustainable Wild-Caught Fisheries (the Principles), continue to gain momentum and add supporters from the philanthropic, conservation and investment communities. These new supporters are critical to advancing the effort to generate investor confidence in the rapidly growing sector of sustainable and socially-responsible fishery investment.

At The Economist Group’s World Ocean Summit in March, Environmental Defense Fund along with partners at Althelia Ecosphere, Encourage Capital, and the Meloy Fund unveiled these innovative Principles—with broad support from impact investors, charitable foundations, project developers and non-profit organizations. With these additions, the official supporters list has grown by 50% to include eight new organizations.

“Given the numerous assaults on our oceans, from climate change to overfishing, the billions of dollars that flow into the world’s fisheries and the billions of people who rely on seafood as their primary source of protein, it is essential that sustainability be factored into investment decisions,” said Dawn M. Martin, Chief Operating Officer at the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. “The Principles offer concrete ESG guidance for investors interested in improving the growing sustainable fisheries sector, and we will continue to encourage the investors we work within the Ceres Investor Network and beyond to follow them.”

“Philanthropy can play a key role in catalyzing investment in new sectors,” said Lex Sant, President of the Summit Foundation. “This community has the power to drive global fishing towards sustainability by investing in model projects that inspire the broader change we want to see.”

The Principles apply globally to all debt and equity investment products deployed to finance a project and/or company, and where the project or company has or is expected to have an impact on wild-caught fisheries and their associated ecosystems and communities. Modeled after the Equator Principles, they complement existing guidelines and frameworks governing environmentally and socially responsible investment.

“Embracing environmental and social principles is critically important in order to build sustainable fishing and seafood supply chains globally,” said Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly, Director of Global Fisheries and Aquaculture at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “We welcome these new investment guidelines as a way to enhance collaboration between the conservation community and investors.”

As part of a commitment to making the Principles the industry standard for sustainable fisheries investments by reaching new and larger investors, Environmental Defense Fund and The Economist Group’s new World Ocean Initiative are co-hosting an investor briefing on October 31 in Paris alongside the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) annual forum. The event is supported by Althelia Ecosphere, Calvert Impact Capital, Encourage Capital, and the Meloy Fund, and is open to all organizations with an interest in a healthy and sustainable ocean economy.

“The Principles cover everything from small-scale fisheries to human rights and food security, said Tim Fitzgerald, Director of Impact at Environmental Defense Fund. “Whether you’re a small impact investor or a global bank with a commitment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, together we can put capital to work in sustainable fisheries that can support more fish, food, and prosperity for fishing communities.”

“The World Ocean Initiative was formed to continue the conversations started at the Ocean Summit and we are pleased to support for the further growth of these Principles,” said Klaas de Vos, Deputy Director, World Ocean Initiative. “We aim to work with the investment community to educate them on the opportunities available in the nascent blue economy.”

The World Ocean Initiative translates the momentum and focus of the World Ocean Summit into a year-round programme on the ocean that leverages the full capabilities of The Economist Group. Through carefully designed and sequenced research and knowledge-building, and by convening decision-makers across the ocean space, we aim to build new outcomes-focused agendas, and new constituencies, across our levers of change—financing, governance and innovation. The World Ocean Summit will beat at the heart of the World Ocean Initiative, providing an annual stage to mark progress across our own initiative, and elsewhere across the cutting edge of the global ocean agenda.www.woi.economist.com@Economist_WOI